Monday, August 3, 2009

NaroCAD Feedback Sessions

NaroCAD project is a CAD Design tool that have is extensible and every design part can be improved to add extra attributes like CAE/CAM. The sourcecode is accessible both as is opensource and the codebase was enough to make other person to add extra shapes or features (Devast added transformations support in around 10 days this included to understand the needed codebase). Also is based on .NET technology, C# codebase that is easy to debug.

Also as any opensource project both we and users benefit as both gets what it needs. So if the NaroCAD does not fit you, or have a bug that annoys you or you simply need one feature, or you want to add it and you don't know how, the best way to do it is to say it. The easiest way is to write two lines in the comment area of any blog post. If you want a more elaborated answer, or simply you need to not put the question publicly, you can email to bxtrx ( mihaizzz(at)yahoo (dot)com ) or to me (ciprian(dot)mustiata(at)gmail (dot) com).

We want to announce right now the NaroCAD Feedback Sessions which will be done twice in a weekly manner, every Wednesday at 17.00 CET (11 AM EDT - New York) and the same meeting will be done the next day Saturday at the same hour: 17.00 CET (11 AM EDT - New York)

How to attend to meetings? You should download Skype as meeting software. At startup you will create one new user (if you don't have one). At the end, you should send a message to user ciprian.mustiata or mihaizn to add you to the conference named very imaginative as NaroCAD.

There for one hour we can hear all suggestions and we are really thankful to get any kind of feedback. The feedback will make NaroCAD to really met your needs and we will listen very cautiously everything you say.

For now NaroCAD have three limitations to work on an Ubuntu distribution:- the wrappers use C++.NET- we have a middleware framework that is integrated with Windows API/WinForms. The good part is that we don't use all functionality of the framework and/or we can try to make another implementation replacing only the WinForms one with a more generic implementation (like using Kyoto or Qymono which are Mono frameworks)- we have to replace most Windows.Forms implementation

In fact the first one if is solved, we can solve the second one if we can put in Mono's Windows Forms implementation the ability to work with OpenGL window inside and to attach the OpenCascade view.

NaroCAD framework excluding the OpenCascade wrapper, works in an OS agnostic manner. The same is about all NaroCAD infrastructure components as importing files.

So, NaroCAD can have a separate UI for Linux that is remade from scratch and only some hooks implemented differently.

The ongoing wrappers work is tried to be made by an Indian guy, but that work is fairly lagging.

If you know Qt a bit you can email me ciprian . mustiata (at) gmail . com and we can try to make a prototype to make NaroCAD to be ported on Linux.